The deep packet inspection (Deep Packet Inspection, DPI) technology is capable of identifying specific Layer 7 protocols, applications, and the like in IP network traffic, for example, is capable of identifying that current network traffic is edonkey (edonkey) and is a P2P application. DPI is mainly used to strengthen delicacy operation for existing network traffic. An operator executes services such as protocol software usage analysis, traffic optimization, safety management, and content charging based on relevant data. To achieve this object, an operator deploys a DPI function on each network element in a network to form an identification function network element. The DPI function of an identification function network element mainly includes a protocol application identification capability and a packet parsing capability.
In the prior art, an identification function module is deployed on each network element that executes a DPI service in a network. A data packet in IP network traffic needs to be identified on each network element in the network. Then, the network element returns an identification result locally and executes subsequent processing on a relevant service based on the identification result, which results in a large delay in executing a DPI service in the entire network.